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Madison Dorn enters elite class with 2,000 points

Parkers Prairie senior Madison Dorn knew she needed 31 points to reach 2,000 for her career heading into the Panthers game against West Central Area on Tuesday night. But once the ball went up, she did everything she could to get that number off her mind.

“My dad had told me a couple days ago,” she said. “I kind of just came out and played. I never count how many I’ve scored, and I don’t want to know how many I score while I’m playing. If it wasn’t tonight, then I knew I would work to get there some other game.”

Senior Madison Dorn looked for an opening while being defended by West Central Area’s Holly Van Kempen on Tuesday night. (Echo Press photo by Eric Morken)

Dorn didn’t have to wait to play Rothsay this Friday night after finishing with 31 points exactly in a 84-35 win over the Knights. With that, she became just the second player to ever reach 2,000 points in Parkers Prairie history.

“I’m proud of myself,” Dorn said. “But I know that I never could have gotten 2,000 points without everyone around me. There’s teams out there who have one good player, but they never reach a 2,000-point goal because they don’t have anyone else to push them every day at practice to get better. It means as much to me as I want it to mean to my team because I couldn’t do it without them.”

Dorn has played alongside some great high school players in her career. She currently shares the backcourt with another star guard in junior Micaela Noga.

Micaela’s older sister, Sari, set the standard at Parkers Prairie when Dorn was breaking onto the scene as a dominant player. Sari’s points (3,571) and rebounds (1,736) record for the Panthers will probably never fall. Noga has gone on to become a starter in the Big Ten at the University of Minnesota. Those kind of accomplishments left an impression with a young nucleus that has gone on to post a 63-7 record over the past two-plus seasons.

“It shows you that, yeah we’re from a small town and we’re not big-name people,” Dorn said of Noga’s influence. “But we can do just as big of things as anybody.”

Dorn had to overcome a slow start on Tuesday before catching fire. She got going by not settling for the jump shot when it wasn’t falling early. She ended up with three triples on the night, but got most of her points in the paint and at the free throw line be being aggressive going to the basket.

That’s what makes Dorn so dangerous at the Class A level. She can shoot from distance as well as anyone when she’s on, but she has a good handle and is adept at getting to the basket. What head coach John Noga loves about her is her willingness to do whatever it takes to help Parkers Prairie reach its ultimate goal of getting back to the state tournament.

“She’s a competitor,” he said. “She wants to win. Other people feed off that, and I see it at another level this year with her. She’s determined. Whether it’s shooting from the outside, driving to the basket. You can see it. That’s that senior mentality that’s coming through.”